The Money Store (LP)

Death Grips

Amoeba Review

Billy Gil, Hollywood 12/17/2012

Complete insanity. The Money Store’s gleefully violent party music slaps you in the privates and wakes you up to the possibilities of sound and energy. Zach Hill and Andy Morin’s drumming and programming hits light a thunderstorm of programmed and live beats, siren-blaring synths and weird sound breaks, while buffed-out Stefan “MC Ride” Burnett looks and sounds like an action figure come to life, spitting rhymes aggressively, but never angrily. Do a fun thing and listen to “I’ve Seen Footage” while you look at a slideshow of your own photos/scroll through your pictures on Facebook. Your life will look way more fun.

04/24/2012

They aren’t kidding by calling their band Death Grips. The indie hip-hop/noise group grabs you by the nether regions and doesn’t let go for 13 bold, blistering tracks that leave you catching your breath. Death Grips sound like little else around, combining early hip-hop energy with futuristic industrial noise bursts and grimy beats, courtesy of Andy Morin and Zac Hill (the latter being the hyper-intense drummer from Hella and Marnie Stern). Stefan Burnett’s guttural spitting cuts through and then takes to the background when it needs to, getting cut up and spliced into the mix, remaining both viscerally appealing and intellectually stimulating. Songs like the dubsteppy “Lost Boys” and head-spinning electro-rap of “Get Got” feel like putting your ear to a wormhole into the future of several genres, spiraling over one another like double helixes in way that feels scarily prescient. The future is now.